I guess I won’t need a Zoom background

@valeranotes

🥲 We Need to Talk About Acceptance Rates

Some students perceive a university's acceptance rate as an estimation of their admission chances. This view is misleading.

For example, Harvard has an acceptance rate of 3.4%. But it does not reflect your likelihood of getting accepted.

During consultations last year, some applications were so unique and exciting that I felt the admissions committee would be nuts not to admit them.

Those students' admissions chances seemed to be, say, 50-100%. Nevertheless, the acceptance rate for most students applying to Harvard is virtually 0%.

So, you can disentangle the 3.4% acceptance rate into the minority of students having solid admissions chances and the majority rejected even before having their files reviewed by the committee.

Of course, this is a simplified description, and many factors are at play. But thinking about rates this way is still helpful to develop an intuition for how the system works.

Conversely, there are universities with acceptance rates of 50% and above. Some applicants interpret this number as guaranteed admission.

However, if you require financial aid in most non-selective universities, your chances are again zero or close to it.

The admissions process is brutal for international students trying to get financial aid. Unfortunately, there are no "safety schools" for you.

@valeranotes

"I Am Quitting Admissions"

I thought about it several times during this year's Early Admissions season. But I obviously brushed off this intrusive thought.

For most of October, I worked 12-14-hour days. I could not call my parents for three weeks, barely left the confines of my room, and got severely ill from sitting at my computer from 11 a.m. to 5 a.m. almost every day.

Very few people see the sacrifices we are making every year to give our students a shot at achieving the impossible. This brutal process taught me to push for perfection even if a positive outcome is far from guaranteed.

It also taught me that achieving exceptional results requires an extraordinary process, the path so challenging most people would not dare take it.

In this sense, the Freshman admissions team appears united in our passion and respect for the craft that has uplifted students to venture beyond their wildest dreams.

We will keep pushing with no expectations. And keep doing what we do best, quietly hoping those sacrifices will be worth it.

@valeranotes

🥋Sparred with Sega in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

He has attended the NUS MMA Club and seriously picked up on the techniques.

Glad to spend more time with him and restart my training after a two-month break.

@valeranotes

Listen, try your best. Genuinely give your all to realizing your goal or vision. But if it does not work out, learn to move on.

There is no reason to get obsessed with an unattainable objective that may not make sense anymore.

Our world is rife with new opportunities, frontiers, and people. Keep pushing while believing, perhaps naively, that the future holds something special for you.

Have a great week!

@valeranotes

My Private Consultations

As you know, I have not offered private consultations for quite a while, focusing on the Admissions Program and Full Support students.

I decided not to take any Full Support students for Regular Decisions. Freshman had some wild applications, such as a kid with SAT 1570 and three A*s on A-level exams that we postponed to next year.

I am still quite busy. But I will dedicate about 50 hours to private meetings in December.

Why would you want a consultation with me?
—Comprehensive application review
—College or supplemental essay editing
—Brainstorming and ideation

Why should you NOT take my consultation?
—Basic American education overview
—Applying to non-competitive commercial universities
—Do not have an application draft prepared

As for my background and track record:
—Graduated from Yale-NUS College with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
—Successfully finished Yale University's on-campus intensive program called Grand Strategy
—In 2023 alone, my students got admitted to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell Business School, UC Berkeley, Babson, NYUAD, Yonsei, and many more

Think twice before signing up. I may cancel the meeting and refund those applications for whom investment in my services does not make sense.

P.S. I will notify you at least two hours prior if I am rescheduling a meeting. You take full financial responsibility for not showing up or attending late.

Freshman Alumni will have 30% longer meetings.

Registration and payment: https://calendly.com/freshmanacademy/consultations-with-valera

@valeranotes

When the motivational essay contains a "vibrant tapestry," you do not need an AI-detector to know ChatGPT wrote it.

100% accuracy so far. Try it yourself. 🥲

@valeranotes

Tiger 🐯

@valeranotes

So Proud of What We Have Built Together

One poster is not enough to include all of Freshman Academy's incredible graduates who reached out to me today.

I consider these guys as nothing short of legends. I felt inspired observing their courage, sacrifice, and resilience as they fought for their dreams.

I am not surprised, but it still warms my heart to know that they genuinely care and are invested in the fates of the new generation of students.

In the days of despair and inevitable setbacks, our community keeps me going. We somehow united some of the most talented, sincere, and determined individuals that I myself have looked up to.

Super hyped for the RD season and the rest of the university decisions!

#GoFreshman

@valeranotes

⚡️Yearly Reminder: University Deadlines are on January 1st at Midnight, NOT TONIGHT

I have back-to-back meetings till 10 pm. Then, I will quickly drop by my friend's party.

Tomorrow, another 12-14 hours of meetings. It is my SIXTH year of not having a proper celebration.

Happy New Year, everyone! 🎉🥲😂

@valeranotes

📌My Three Lessons from the 2023 Admissions Season

The recent application period has been my most challenging to date. Our students produced about 20K words of research papers alone.

Only in the Full Support, Freshman students have written 120K words of essays. And we are not even counting hundreds of hours of Admissions Program meetings and Personal Consultations.

Here are three takeaways I have drawn from this experience:

1) In 2024, we will drastically improve the Full Support curriculum and delegate the tasks to help MORE students in their admissions journeys.

Last year, we rejected a Full Support applicant with 3 A*s on A-levels and 1570 on the SAT. Our limited team and my overinvolvement resulted in Freshman's high selectivity. This year, we will streamline the process and involve our talented Admissions Team.

Additionally, we are working hard to establish a Singapore office where we hope to hire Yale-NUS graduates and other experienced writers and advisors full-time. Working offline with them would allow us to ensure quality and train staff more effectively.

Our vision is to build a virtual and physical space where the world's best teachers will mentor the world's best students.

2) In 2024, I will openly speak up on the crucial questions and topics I modestly omitted and shyly avoided.

I have quite a few points to discuss. One is the repeated use of Freshman's admissions cases by individuals having virtually nothing to do with them. I avoided those discussions because any critically thinking student sees through such laughable marketing.

It has been a few years now, yet false claims persist. And I frankly cannot tolerate them any longer, given how much my team and I sacrificed to assist our mentees on their journeys: THEIR success we facilitated.

We will publicly confront anyone who misappropriates evidence of their Ivy admissions expertise, especially when such does not exist.

Simultaneously, Freshman will continue being transparent about our stories. In our communication, we will highlight students' outstanding efforts in making their wildest dreams a reality.

3) In 2024, we will start admissions preparation as soon as possible.

Our latest clients in China have already joined us 1-2 years before their deadlines.

The Full Support and Admissions Programs' much-anticipated launches will happen as soon as possible. We will set strict spring and summer deadlines and milestones for those joining our admissions programs.

Freshman Academy moves towards disciplined and forward-planning organization, making the admissions process enjoyable and demanding the highest performance from new students.

We face many challenges on the way to becoming one of the world's most creative, academia-driven, well-connected, and accomplished admissions teams. But this is not a distant dream anymore. We see it as a tangible goal achievable in the midterm.

Sooner or later, we get there.

P.S. Read the comments if you are confused about the dislikes below 😹👇

@valeranotes